Songs After Noon 

And Other Poems £y 

ALVIN B. BISHOP 




Class / ..... -^ ^LJjLd O 

Book c_^J*~-Li 

(Copyright N?___ 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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SONGS AFTER NOON 



BY 



ALVIN B. BISHOP 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

The Gorham Press 
1906 



Copyiight 1906 by Alvin B. Bishop 
All Rights Reserved 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT 17 1906 

Copyright Entry 

®&2 /?./?* c* 

CLASS CL XXc.No, 
COPY B. 












Printed at 

THE GORHAM PRESS 

Boston, U. S. A. 



*% 



DEDICATION 

TO MY MOTHER 

My little Mother: — 

My most heartfelt song — 

/ zuould it were my best — flies hack to you, 

The tenderest critic poet ever knew. 
From wider, wilder flight pursued too long. 
But ah! home-flying wings are ever strong, 

No matter what the storm they struggle through; 

For spite of all home-love is stanch and true, 
And, though it stray, can never quite go wrong. 

So the dear home and you that make it dear 
Shall have amid my verse a corner here, 

Sacred to faith and love and that sweet past 
Which teaches through the years what love is best; 
Which brings your boy for comfort to one breast, 

His life's first solace — might it be his last! 



O mother-love, most blest, 

O sweet, in joy or rest, 

And first — and last — and best! 

Sweet mother-love. 
The keys of life thou hast, 
The future and the past. 
O first — and best — and last! 

Strong mother-love. 



PROEM 

/ sing, though from life's afternoon, 

The joys of morning, and the tune 

Of just-awakened birds, that call 

Into the heart hope's madrigal. 

I sing of Beauty, as it lies 

Enskied in heaven or woman's eyes: 

I sing of Truth, that "better part" 

Which giveth grace to heart or art'. 

I sing the Good, and would not reach 

A strain too rare its worth to teach. 

From grove and grot and crannied flower; 

From bursting buds and April shower; 

From violet and pink and rose; 

From vernal vines and winter snows, 

From sea-hid pearls and stars above — 

/ tell the myriad charms of Love'. 

Then weary-winged I cease to roam, 

And sing the songs of home, sweet home! 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Eventide 9 

Morning Glories 9 

An April Afternoon 10 

Soul Wealth 10 

Fear Not, Doubt Not 1 1 

The Metamorphosis 1 1 

Let Your Light So Shine 12 

To Sleep 12 

To the Children 13 

The Children 13 

Children's Kisses 15 

Dream Song 16 

Faith 17 

Bedtime Song 17 

Far Away 18 

Wish Song 20 

Evening Hymn 20 

The Evening Star 21 

Night's Nirvana 22 

Growing Old 23 

NOTES OF ALTRUISM AND OPTIMISM 

Optimisms 26 

The Joy of Living 27 

News Comments 27 

Holy Ground 28 

The Pledge of Peace 29 

Life-Lore 30 

5 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Look Beyond 31 

Cast Thy Bread 32 

Song 32 

Wealth 33 

TYPES AND CHARACTERS 

Forgiven 36 

Her Telegram 40 

The Cobbler's Daughter 42 

My Oriole in the Morning 48 

The Climbers 50 

Vacation Thoughts 51 

A Poet 52 

The Aged Poet 53 

The Poet Dead 54 

Consider the Flowers 54 

The Battle of Violets 55 

Appreciation 57 

Poet and Farmer 57 

Dandelions 59 

Helene 60 

A Maiden's Ideal 61 

Happier Days 61 

June in October 62 

The Lesson 63 

A Bride 64 

To a Fair Little Stranger 64 

Envoi . 64 

6 



CONTENTS 

THE POESY OF A RING 

Page 

To My Wife 68 

Revelations 7 2 

Love's Elation . 72 

A New Old Song 73 

The Tryst 73 

Love and Life 74 

Hymn to Woman 75 

Numen 76 

The Shadow on the Dream; a Fragment. ... 76 

OCCASIONAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 
PIECES AND TRANSLATIONS 

To My Father 82 

The One Word 82 

Kesha 83 

To My Son 85 

The Old Year 88 

Easter 89 

Baby's Catechism 90 

A Baby in the Home . 91 

Little Things 92 

Unconditional Surrender 93 

Requiem 94 

Requiescat 95 

Strivings 96 

The Kingfisher 96 

7 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Redundancy 97 

A Hint to Artists 97 

The World's View of Him. 98 

The Light of Russia 99 

The Two Fathers 100 

"Eternal Memory" 101 

Altgeld's Last Thought 102 

To An English Poet 102 

On Re-Reading a Favorite Poet 103 

An American Poet . 103 

On Another 104 

To D. F. S 104 

Song 105 

Sunday Religion 106 

A Baby's Face 106 

Of Such are the Kingdoms 107 

Graduation 107 

Fragment 107 

Notes 108 

Achievement 109 

The Fate 109 

The Silent Land no 

The Mountain Voice in 

The Brooklet 112 

On the Death of a Pet Sparrow 113 

Song 114 



EVENTIDE 

Old Age, though thou be neighbor unto death, 
Thou art no kin of his. He, dark as night, 
In valleys lurks. Thou walk'st the hills of white 

Where Hope still chants and Memory slumbereth 

On what she cannot praise ; where peaceful breath 
And leisure and calm moods lend fresh delight 
To sunset and the evestar. So the sight 

Hath cheer at eventide, as Scripture saith. 

So, as the seasons rush, I dread thee not, 

But hail thy silvered crown with placid joy; 
So near the end as once, a dreamy boy, 
I sought the shadows of my trundle-cot — 
Thither by mother's kiss made bold to creep — ■ 
And murmured "Now I lay me down to sleep." 

MORNING GLORIES 

"The glory of the morn is passed away. 

The toil abides until the set of sun, 

The tears and travail till the day is done. 
Lo! where the pride and promise of the day?" 
So, with a sigh, I heard one murmur. "Nay," 

Another answered, "day is scarce begun. 

Beneath the stars the deepest joys are won. 
Greet dusk with feast and mirth." Still better, pray, 

"Let not for dark the voice of praise be dumb." 
'The morning and the evening' does it say 

Marked off the primal splendors done and 

blessed ? 
Stages by which Creation marched to rest? 
'The evening and the morning' are His day, 
The glory of the morn is yet to come ! 
9 



AN APRIL AFTERNOON 

Beauty is ever with us. Though the day 
Was dreariest of the lagging days of spring, 
So filled with cloud and sleet and murmuring 
Of winds about the sodden fields, that lay 
Snow-clad till noon; of sunshine not a ray! 
Yet — one shrill twitter and a rustling wing — 
A redbreast dropped and made his sportive swinj 
The dead bough at my window. Lo ! away 
Fly April and her mist and gust and rain. 

The flooding pulse of June throngs on my soul. 
I hear the swarming chorus of the lea, 
The joy of lambs and children, and I see 
In gold-green waves the molten sunlight roll 
Across the happy deeps of summer grain. 



SOUL-WEALTH 

He is not poor who has the mind to hold 
The treasures of this garden world of God, 
Though not a rood of it his foot has trod, 

Saying '"Tis mine." I have been young, am old, 

But ne'er met Soul a-begging. Wealth untold 
My neighbor's acres yield me. His the clod ; 
Mine is the largess of the flowery sod. 

For me at sunset are the hills of gold. 

I grudge him not the coinage of his hopes, 

Who mints the garnered corn, the cellared wine, 

When heaven's caress upon the sunny slopes 
Flings me the glory of the shock and vine ; 

Or his thick sleep when I go dreaming through 

The moonlit vales he owns, but never knew. 
10 



FEAR NOT, DOUBT NOT 

Fear not too much, though life hold much to 
affright ; 

Doubt not too far, though little can be known. 

'T is what man dares that brings him to his own, 
What he believes that gives him heart to fight. 
Doubt never led the vanguard of the right, 

Fear never planted truth upon its throne. 

That lesson, youth, carve as in living stone, 
And, for thine age, write this in sunset light: 

Fear not at all; for what can life or death 
Do unto thee, the soul being all in all? 

The first — thine own — make meet for Heaven's 

review ; 
The other — His gift — may then be smiled on, 
too. 
Then face the future with unbated breath, 
And — thy best done — await the final call. 



THE METAMORPHOSIS 

Far spent the night and hush each sleeper's breath — 
My dreaming left me, (near my slumber's end,) 
Without the cheer of light or hand of friend, 

And faced by her whom, whispering, men call Death. 

Nun-garbed and haggard, pallid as a wraith, 
She beckoned me that nearer I should wend. 
The closer view did strange enchantment lend, 

And growing sweetness bathed her as she saith : 

"Come unto me, O tearful, heavy-laden." 

Her robe unfolded and her breast shone bare — 
Beyond the dreams of youth ah! she was fair. 
II 



She drew me to herself, a rose-lipped maiden! 
She balmed my weeping with her glorious hair, 
And all my dream was sweetly buried there. 

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE 

I met an old man in a shop one day, 

Whom 1 had often greeted on the street, 
But ne'er held converse with. On trembling feet 
Feeble and bowed he shambled ; yet a ray 
Of cheer he left behind him. Almost gay 
His wan face smiled — for saintly halo meet! 
And now he grasped my hand and thus did greet: 
'My friend, and are you on the Heavenly way? 
And shall we — promise me! — at God's throne 
meet?" 
And I, as best one worldly-thoughted might, 
Left answering "I trust . . ." or ". . . 
hope I may . . ." 
Then mused : What creed, with churchly chant- 
ing sweet, 
Could hymn such faith as does that face's light, 
Or breathe such hope against the oncoming 
Night? 

TO SLEEP 

Beloved, by poets feigned the roseate twin 
Of one who shall be nameless here, since I 
Would image nothing somber as I lie 

Waiting, like promised swain, to be let in 

To sweetheart dear as life ; O let me win, 
By wooings tender and soft minstrelsy 
Of airiest revery, one caress from thee, 

Happy as child-love, as my own has been! 
12 



Not thy full amorous embrace, O Sweet, 
I ask; not a long night of dreamless rest, 
Pillowed upon the ripeness of thy breast; 

Such boon in these grey days were all unmeet. 
Give me one mother-kiss, glad balm of yore ! 
That I may dream myself a child once more. 

TO THE CHILDREN 

When I behold your joys, ye children dear, 
In you recall the beauty of past days, 
Blessings upon you and unending praise 

I shall invoke while memory hold clear. 

For at the portal of the circling year 

Ye stand — the flowery parting of life's ways, 
Amassing violets, hoarding vernal lays 

And fairy myths, our wintry hearths to cheer. 

Poets are ye from out the virgin clime 

Where nature builds and love attunes the lay, 

Bards with no need of rhythm or of rime, 
Lyrists and laureates of the glad To-day. 

Still lapped are ye in immortality — 

Sing on, sweet bards, the songs that never die. 

THE CHILDREN 

Let me have children around me 
As, the years of my life gliding o'er, 

I catch the first sound of the ripples 
That break on the farther Shore. 

I think that I never should chide them 

In their noisy but innocent glee, 
For the days of my own dear childhood 

They would ever bring back to me. 

13 



» _>. 



I should cherish their smiles and sweetness 
Though I drank of the river of tears 

That comes, with so startling a fleetness, 
Down the valley and shadow of years. 

Alas! for a home without them, 

Though garnished with songsters and flowers: 
A fragrance and song would be lacking 

In these heart-chambers of ours. 

For they are the blossoms immortal 

The Father has sent from above, 
The perennial birds at life's portal, 

To teach us the song of His love. 

Then welcome, their mirth and their laughter, 
Their prattle and clatter and noise! 

(There '11 be a long Silence, hereafter! 
God bless them, the girls and the boys!) 

Ah ! no : I never could chide them 
In their maddest and merriest glee, 

But smile till my own sweet childhood 
Were vanished from memory. 

And oft, as the deepening twilight 

Merged with the fireside glare, 
Plow I should love to gather 

The little ones 'round my chair! 

The wee maiden, willowy-slender, 
Half-grown, but in beauty complete ; 

The stout lad, masterful — tender, 
And the baby, the house-bud sweet. 

H 



Ah ! dearer than fleece of an Argo, 
The wealth of their flaxen hair! 

More precious than garnet or sapphire, 
Their eyes in the hearth-glow there! 

Then, taking the kingliest urchin, 
To reign on the throne of my knee, 

As a laureate I would sing them 
The old songs dearest to me. 

And thus, in a sweet second childhood, 
If to me length of days should be given, 

May I cherish the words of the Master, 
"Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." 



CHILDREN'S KISSES 

Baby, blow me a kiss 

Up from your cradled bliss, 
Up from the valleys of down and white, 
Dotted with flowers of love and light, 
To the clouded hills of Afternoon, 
Of the setting sun and the waning moon, 
For your twinkling sight too far away, 
Yet the white bud feet must climb some day. 

Baby throw me a kiss 

Up from your cradled bliss; 
The mists will lift, and clouds will rift 

At the sunshine of your play. 

Childhood, blow us a kiss 

From your world up to this : 
With a breath of the far-off violet's birth 
Wafted along, and a note of the mirth 

Of the wildbird's earliest madrigal: 

15 



With a hint of strawberries, (crushed by tips 
Of chubby fingers,) off your lips: 
For we are here on the hills above, 
With little but memories — and your love, 

As shadows lengthen and snowflakes fall. 

Darling, throw us a kiss 

From your world up to this, 
And cloud and snows are gone, Love's spring is over 
all. 

DREAM SONG 

Skylamps are lighted 

And playtime past, 
And we go jogging 

To dreamland fast. 

Smooth is the way 
And paved with flowers; 

Like birds the horses, 
Minutes the hours. 

From tricks and toys 

To Mamma's breast, 
And low-sung joys 

That she knows best. 

From Mamma's knee 

To Slumber's lap — 
We are passing, see, 

The hills of Nap. 

And now to the bed 

And under the clothes — 
This, Golden-head, 

Is the valley of Doze. 

16 



And so jog on 

Through silence deep, 
To the beautiful, mystical 

City of Sleep. 

There fairies caress thee, 

Golden-head, 
Good angels bless thee 

And guard thy bed ! 



FAITH 

My wide-eyed boy, fear-wakened in the night, 
From out the bourne of dreams' mysterious deep 

Called for his father's kisses — not for light! 

Then, smiling through the gloom, slipped back to 
sleep. 

So to my quickening faith may Love's caress, 
The gentle clasping of the unseen Hand, 

Be all I ask the darkening way to bless; 
Be with me when the Night is on the land ! 



BEDTIME SONG 

Folded in slumber is each little flower, 

With shadow and dewdrop blest, 
And the birdie that swings in the tree-top bower, 

With head tucked under its breast. 
"Peep, peep," says the bird in her bower, 
"Sleep, sleep," says the mother flower. 
Through the dark night, 
Till the morning light, 
Flower and birdie must slumber and rest. 

17 






Fold thee to rest, my little white flower, 

Tucked in thy cradle warm. 
Motherly love and fatherly power 

Shield thee from every harm. 
Smile, smile, by fairies caressed, 
Dream, dream, in the gardens of rest, 
Through the dark night, 
Till the morning light 
Kisses the bloom of our little white flower. 

Fold thee to sleep, my little white bird, 

Swung in thy nestlike home. 
Sweet though thy song as ever was heard, 

Silence and night must come! 
Smile, smile, by angels caressed, 
Dream, dream, of the fields of the blest, 
Through the long night, 
Till the morning light 
Wakens to song our little white bird. 



FAR AWAY 

A dream of the dear old home, 

Whither only the heart may stray ! 
O dear ones, when shall your wanderer come 

Leaping the lilac way ? 

— Far, far away, 

Farther than ever to-day! 

A dream of the old white school ; 

Of lads and lasses at play; 
Of a sweet-voiced woman, whose gentle rule 

Made happy the humdrum day. 

— Far, far away, 

Far away! 

18 



Where are the dreams of youth, 

The visions of broadening day ? 
The passionate quest of beauty and truth 

We thought to abide alway? 

— Far, far away, 

Farther than ever to-day ! 

Where is the heaven of love, 

Starred as by night its day? 
Gone, like the twinkling sparks above, 

In the sullen morning's ray? 

— Far, far away, 

Far away! 

Where are the treasures untold, 

To come like the plot of a play? 
The crown of glory, the crest of gold, 

And the spoils of strife and sway? 

— Far, far away, 

Farther than ever to-day ! 

Where is the peace of mind, 

The dream of our life's noonday? 
The walks with Nature, the leisure refined, 

To smoothen our twilight way? 

— Far, far away, 

Far away ! 

Where is the promised rest, 

Forgotten too many a day? 
The mother-taught, prayer-sought, ever blest? 

Be thankful if thou can say, 

"Not far away — 

Nearer than ever to-day !" 



19 



WISH SONG 

O may the scent of flowers breathe 
To hallow my last breath ; ; 

May beauty's iris ringers wreathe 
A chaplet for my death, 

And furl glad banners that shall sheathe 
Sorrow in hues of hope and faith! 

O may the voice of music creep 

Upon me as I die, 
And softly me allure to sleep 

Like a mother's lullaby, 
That soothed child griefs to slumbers deep 

In days of happy memory! 

And, with it all, O grant me this, 

As I near the Silent Land, 
To feel my loved-one's parting kiss 

And the pressure of her hand! 
Their comfort, enough to crown life's bliss, 

Their meaning, enough to understand. 



EVENING HYMN 

As the flower at dusky eve, 
Ere its blossom closes, 

Doth the gracious dews receive, 
Then in peace reposes, 

So may we with grace be blest, 

And as gently sink to rest. 

Then, O Father, while we sleep, 

In Thy love confiding, 
All Thy trustful children keep, 
20 



(Near to Thee abiding,) 
Safe from ill and night's alarms, 
Folded in Thy sheltering arms. 

May the rest we now enjoy, 
(Naught our souls accusing,) 

Fit us for our life's employ 
And the Master's using. 

Such repose by Thee is given, 

Emblem of the rest in Heaven. 

As the flower, when morn returns, 

To the air unclosing, 
Bends to where the sunlight burns, 

Sweets, like praise, disposing. 
Thus, each newborn day, may we, 
Father, turn our hearts to Thee! 



THE EVENING STAR 

Star of the eve, whose mellow ray 
Follows the lingering train of day 
With more of grace and peace and power 
Than many a garish sunlit hour; 
That bringst the songbird to his nest, 
Glad Love unto the lover's breast, 
And dewy rest from regions far 
To earth and me, sweet evening star! 

After the fitful hours of day, 
Its thankless tasks, its fruitless play, 
Thou comest like the balm of peace 
That falleth on a soul's release. 
21 



And I could wish that, when I die, 
The last look of my closing eye, 
As the freed spirit should wing afar, 
Might rest on thee, sweet evening star. 



NIGHT'S NIRVANA. 

A hush is on this midnight air 

Like an infant's sleep, 
Or a maid's unuttered prayer 

Ere to bed she creep. 
And here a planet, there a star, 
Darts me a meaning, clear and far, 
— And clear as far, in such an hour — 
That One is all, and that is Power? 

That all is One, and that is Rest, 
To merge with, when the futile fret, 
The sombre turmoil, husht regret, 
Are over, and inurned our tears 
For cycles that outlive the spheres? 

— That Love comes here, and that is best! 

So footworn pilgrims, doomed to keep 

The dusty road, pause unawares, 
And meek-eyed women cease to weep 

O'er faded blossoms, thorny cares; 
And, wrapt in circling silence deep, 
Worldwide the playworn children sleep. 



22 



GROWING OLD 

Down the slopes of Afternoon, 

Toward the foothills fringed with gold- 
Hark! the twilight whispers croon — 

Dear, the day is growing old. 

Children hush at curfew bell; 

Sheep go tinkling to the fold — - 
Hark! the dew-fays ring a knell — 

Dear, the day is growing old. 

Birds a-peeping in the nest — 

Glow-lamps glimmering in the grass — 

Hush ! the day has gone to rest — 
Thus the sweets of life must pass. 

Draws the long, long Silence near, 

Purple grow the hills of gold. 
Lean a little closer, Dear, 

For the day is growing old. 

One sweet darling gone to sleep — 
One afar in other fold — 
Lullabies to requiems creep, 

(Such a pace!) as day grows old. 

Yet, above, clear blue! (oh, sing!) 
Smiles the eve star "All is well." 

Let the new day "Welcome!" ring, 
Ere to this we chant "Farewell!" 



23 



NOTES OF ALTRUISM 

AND 

OPTIMISM. 



,. 



OPTIMISMS 

What a drear morn! 

Snow but half gone — 
Leafless — forlorn — '■ 

Spring still afar: 
Yet — a bird's throat, 

From greyest dawn, 
Stretched with a note 
Clear as a star. 

What a rough shell! 
Hid fathoms deep; 
Lighted as well 

Midnight as morn. 
Never sunbeam 

Kissed its dull sleep : 
Yet — fairy-dream ! — 

The pearl was born. 

What a rude home! 
Rugless the floor: 
Not a rose-bloom 

A-blush at the pane: 
Yet — voices ring 

From the low door — 
"Child of a King!" 

Comes the refrain. 

What a hard world! 

Meedless its strife — 
Wish it impearled? 

A-glow with the spring? 
Of thy own art, 

The jewels of life: 
Out of the heart 

Be glad and sing! 
26 



THE JOY OF LIVING 

Oh, benison of the good free air; 
Ah, bliss of this mere breathing! 

When the year and life are both at spring, 
And Love, too, garlands wreathing. 
Hoping than having seems more fair, 
Getting less blest than giving, 

As, freed from the atom self, a-wing 
The soul soars, just with the joy of living. 

Such — and so taught — that joy, just now, 
As, up from the dun earth swinging, 

That rusty-coated poet, (above 
On the bough there,) took to singing. 
Not a blossom, not a leaf, on the bough, 
Yet he set all the airs a-quiver, 

With brown breast nigh to his nested love, 
And heart throbbing, throatvvise, up to the Giver. 



NEWS COMMENTS 

Foully had he marred our nature, 
Stooped to ignominious crime. 

"Sin without redeeming feature," 
Justice said at sentence-time. 

Yet he faced unblanched the scaffold, 
Marched to death almost sublime. 

Swindler, rake and — worse, his calling 
Than the press would care to name ! — 

Scarred from many a brutal brawling 
Over deeds of fraud and shame ; 

Yet he sent that miscreant sprawling, 
Who had slurred a woman's fame. 
27 



Wretch and vagrant, drunken, thieving, 
Bestial from his trampings wild, 

Yesterday — now, all retrieving, 

(Crushed to death and dust-defiled,) 

Knighted by the crowd's husht plaudits, 
Who had died to save a child. 

Thus — despite its self-defiling — 
Clay shall own the Potter's plan, 

Spite of pessimist reviling 

The God-image smiles in man, 

And the spark divine, long smoldered, 
Flames, to point where hope began. 

Men are base, but Man is glorious! 

In the type abides God's grace. 
Myriads fail and fall: victorious 

Move the standards of the race — 
And the failures and the fallen 

In the Triumph shall have place. 



HOLY GROUND 

Tell me, what is holy ground? 
Is it where the goodly priest, 
With his urn or censer, 'round 
Sprinkles waters he has blest, 
Sows sweet savor to the air? 

Yes : with heart sincere and true 
If he look those symbols through, 
Loving and with utter prayer; 
That the place is holy there 
Freely grant I, if you will, 
But I know a holier still. 
28 



Where the dear departed sleep, 
All the loyal souls and true 
Whom we glory that we knew, 
For that they Love's faith did keep — 

Where the good and lovely rest 
Who have lived for man and God — 
Counted joy and duty one, 
Counted loss each good undone, 
Thought their noblest, wrought their best- 
Yea, and every spot they trod 
In unselfish, glad unrest, 
That is holy, that is blest. 



THE PLEDGE OF PEACE 

False seers, who call our hope of peace 
A childhood dream, a woman's whim, 
'Tis not alone an angel's hymn 

That tells us martial crime shall cease. 

The Ages chant: "From grace to grace 
Mankind moves on in spite of man." 
Yea, something of immortal plan 

Shines in the progress of the race. 

From paths in shame and darkness trod 
We see, despite the mist of doubt 
And gloom that all the valley fills, 
The Gospel feet upon the hills — 
Organic Purpose working out 
The far-off flowering thought of God. 



29 



AS A BIRD 

O bird, sing on, the morn of spring is clear. 
Sing on, for twilight and the frosts are near. 

Forest and field and flower 

Await thy songful power. 
Sing on, nor wait for any world to hear. 

Sing on, glad heart, if thou have hope and love. 
Sing on, if there be any blue above. 

Some barefoot child, tiptoe, 

May wait thy warble's flow. 
Sing on, and, for thy meed — the joy thereof! 

Sing on, sweet bard, though ashen be the sky. 
Sing on, though love and hope have passed thee by. 

Sing on, still brave, nor deem 

Thine an immortal's dream — 
'Tis not thou, but thy song, that shall not die! 

LIFE-LORE 

Life's meaning is not ready given 

With life, but out of brimming years 

The lesson comes, (as saints gain Heaven,) 
By care and prayer and faithful tears. 

As he that runs sees flowers full-blown 

Along the summer wayside fair. 
Nor dreams of tiny seedlings sown 

By winged stealth upon the air ; 

So life, its essence or its seed, 

We know not, yet the worth thereof 

Each soul self-teaches when in deed 
And truth it blossoms into love. 

30 



^z 



LOOK BEYOND 

Do the storm-clouds thickly lower? 

Look beyond! 
Do you dread the shock and shower? 

Look beyond, 
To the beauty of the flower, 
To the fruitage, and the dower 
Yours — if sturdy to the end, 
Day by day and hour by hour — 

Look beyond! 

Hard and dusty is the road ? 

Look beyond ! 
Heavy, heavier, is the load? 

Look beyond, 
Where the sun-fed landscape lies, 
Merging into cloudless skies : 
There shall rest the bruised feet, 
There shall close the weary eyes. 

Look beyond! 

Have you laid in frost-bound grave 
The one blossom summer gave ? 

Look beyond! 
Do you, through the rush of tears, 
See but shadow down the years? 

Look beyond. 
Out of grief let hope awaken — 
Love hath given, Love hath taken ! 
( Blessed be the name of Love ! ) 
Onward, then, with faith unshaken — - 

Look beyond. 



31 



Do you dread the Shadow's fall, 
And the dusky Boatman's call? 

Look beyond ! 
Though the chilling waves be near, 
And the summons stern and clear, 
Meet it with a heart of cheer — 

Look beyond, 
Though with dim and fading eyes, 
Where the Better Country lies; 
To the promise of the prize, 
To the glory of the skies — 

And beyond ! 



CAST THY BREAD 

Be not discouraged, thou true heart, 
Thou life seem bare, as barren, art. 

Still the glad deed, the loving word, 
Send forth — Godspeed! — and, down the years, 
Somewhere, 'mid smiles or fragrant tears, 
It shall have fruit, it shall be heard. 



SONG 

Why, little maiden, 
Dost thou fear me? 

I have no evil 
At heart for thee. 

If I spy thee at dawn 
Or at golden midday, 

Like a startled fawn 
Thou art flitting away; 

32 



Or a minnow that darts 
At a splash in the stream ; 

And the light of thine eyes 
Is gone from my dream. 

Is it those loving looks 
That I cast upon thee ? 

So I do at the flowers, 
And the bird on its tree. 

But I never pluck them, 

Blossom or leaf, 
Nor feathered songster 

Would bring to grief ; 

The fields rove never 
With rod or with gun: 

But I love all fair things 
Under the sun. 

From all things living 

This lesson I find, 
" 'Tis the best of life's giving 

To love and be kind." 

Thus by my duty 

Do I love thee, 
As the flower in its beauty, 

The bird on its tree. 

So, little maiden, 

Fear no ill art 
For the bloom on thy cheek 

Or the song in thy heart. 



33 



GRACE BEFORE MEAT 

Lord, the blessings thou art giving 
Fit unto our better living, 

And our hearts with kindness bless, 
That, then, 
With our grateful praises blending 
Neighbor thought we may be sending 
Those who thank thee, Lord, for less. 
Amen! 



WEALTH 

Once, in a dream, came Happiness, 

And, with a smiling kiss: 
Wouldst thou have wealth, thy life to bless? 

Then hear and ponder this: 
Wealth hath two elements, no less, 
In its analysis. 
The first is what thou hast ; the other, and chief, part, 
What thou desirest not — there lies life's Midas-art: 



34 



TYPES AND CHARACTERS 



FORGIVEN 

This is the coroner, Doctor Pue? 
Well, here is the strangest case for you ! 

A dead man came to my house last night, 
(Just a block up, the street to your right,) 
My foe that was once my dearest friend. 
Not to tell the story from end to end 
And weary you, we were boys together 
And chums in every kind of weather ; 
In the same yard all summer played, 
And, cheek by jowl in sun or shade, 
Rollicked and frolicked to each heart's fill 
And dinned and dared at each other's will ; 
Both teased the same sweet neighbor girl, 
Yet loved her, both, from the flaxen curl, 
Caressing her fair, low brow, to the feet 
We scarce would chase, they were so fleet — 
(Just a note of her, for the case will bear — 
Reminiscent — upon her here and there.) 
Together we went to boarding-school, 
Where we kept or scorned, as one, the rule; 
Played truant, to fish or bathe in the cool 
Still waters of a wondrous pool 
We called our own — such a secret, quite ! — 
And, by the same tutor caned at night, 
Crept in disgrace into one small bed, 
And dreamt, by each other comforted, 
His black locks close to my auburn head. 

Well, so it went through college days 

And on, till the maddening love of her, 

With her bright moon-face and her big grey eyes- 

In the right light, though, as blue as the skies — 

36 



With her sparkling, veering, vexing ways — 
Our fairy neighbor, (her name was Kate,) 
As the moon in eclipse will blacken and blur 
The sun, turned our boy love to hate. 

I was saying? — he came to me last night; 

But whence or how I cannot say, 

For I had not seen him since the day 

When we squared our difference, there in a dell 

Of the Kershon wood, as twilight fell, 

And the moon came up, to add to the white 

Fresh-fallen pall of the stark November 

The "Pax vobiscum" of her light — 

The trouble then? — As I remember, 

We had some words — about her, you know, 

(That is the story since Eve began, 

By flirting with serpents! to trouble man.) 

Words blossomed to blows, then — blood — and so 

I left him — abed, there in the snow — 

And thought him — asleep ! — but to my story : 

A knock at the door, and he was in. 

"Be seated," and, with his favorite frown, 

In my one whole chair he sat him down : 

Much the same as ever, but very thin, 

And pale, yet dark, as he seemed that night, 

(What a blot on the moon's and the snow-sheen's 

glory!) 
And he sat there now in the yellow light 
Of my one oil lamp, and under his hat 
Looked at me with the same old sneer 
Upon his face, half smirk, half leer — 
( Since youth a smile was as alien to him 
As a water-lily would be on the brim 
Of a lava-stream,) and just for that 
I hated him with a good round hate, 

37 



But more, no doubt, for the fact that she 
Thought him handsome, my lovely Kate, 
And had told me so, one night in June. 
Under the smile of the full round moon ; 
So I scarce could hate him more, you see, 
When the very next day she jilted me. 
I never can look on a full moon since, 
Of a summer night, but I shudder and wince 
As I did that night, ten years — is it ten ? — 
Ago, when I read in her eyes my fate, 
The fate that fell to me on the morrow — 
But without a tear or the taste of sorrow ; 
For heart was gone with the love of Kate, 
My feet took hold on the Hell of hate, 
And God had not seen my tears since then 
Till- 
But small's the gap from June to November, 
When the heart's no roses to remember, 
(And a decade of Junes could not bring back 
The roses she took, or clear life's track 
Of the thorns she left, or quench hate's ember.) 
And there he lay — huh ! — there he sat, 
Leering from under his tilted hat, 
And, in a waned and whining voice, , 

(No echo of the ringing past!) 
Spoke of old times, and of her, at last, 
Reviewing the tale of a maiden's choice 
Of godlike beauty o'er manly worth! 
And the sad sequel's doom and dearth ; 
Of the soul-pearl sniffed by the unmasked swine ; 
Of the rended heart, that once was mine ! 
How long I know not, but an age 
It seemed, that I pent my gathering rage, 
Till "What do you want?" at length I cried, 
Diminuendo, for I descried 

38 



That the lifelong sneer on his lips had died, 
And, faint and fading, I glimpsed at last 
The ghost of a smile from the days long past ! 

"Forgiveness!" — a queer little nod of the head — 
A whisper — "for sake of" — a gurgle — "the dead !" 
I had sprung on him — one hot hand at his throat- 
But how still he sat ! and seemed to gloat 
On my impotent wrath — O God ! what was this ? 
My fire was low : with a feeble hiss 
It spluttered out its last faint flaring: 
Yet why he was quite so cold, while I 
So hot, with this surging hell in my head, 
I wondered — an instant — then read the why, 
As I dragged him to his feet at my will, 
In the scare-crow limpness, (I feel it still,) 
And the coal-black eyeballs, glazed and staring, 
(When I close mine I see them glaring!) 
For there, in my clasp, he stood — stone-dead! 
"Forgive? Well, yes, since you ask it," I said, 
And carried him — light as that boy, grown old 
In a dream — and laid him upon my bed. 
But come, you will find it as I have told. 



39 



THE TELEGRAM 

What, boys, another round? Well, leave me out. 

I'm feeling dull to-night — No, well enough, 

But out of humor for a time like this, 

Yet hardly feel like — walking home just yet. 

The matter? Ha! you'd laugh to hear me tell. 

You always laugh at aught of sentiment 

That breaks in on our revel here — No, no, 

'Tis nothing, nothing. . . . Well, if you insist, 

At risk of making you as dull as I, 

I'll tell the little story of the day 

That makes me such a dullard here to-night. 

The wife is gone from home, called suddenly, 

(Illness of kinsfolk in a distant town,) 

Right from her daily work, our little house 

Not put to rights; and I, left all alone, 

To ease my loneliness, (at which you smile,) 

And busy idle hands, set to right 

The tumbled household gods; that is, to clear 

Away the morning's meal and order straight 

The looks of things about the vacant rooms. 

So, off with coat and waistcoat, sleeves rolled up, 

I fell to work — No doubt 'twas comical, 

And you may smile, as you would sure have laughed 

To see me. 

Boys, I did not laugh, somehow, 
A sense of loss there was, a dreariness, 
My life had never known before — to you 
Mere sentiment, at which you fellows sneer — - 
Long rid the useless cumbrance of a heart! — 
So smile at the queer picture that I made: 
A man turned housemaid, aproned to his task, 
In tears because his wife a day or so 
Is gone. 

40 



But fancy she should not come back ! 
That those poor vacant rooms should know no more 
Her face's sunshine and her laughter's song: 
That her poor pets — her great black tom-cat, there, 
Drowsily stretching by the kitchen fire; 
The yellow bird, (that I forgot to feed!) 
Dressing its feathers in its silent cage — 
Should never brighten at her step again, 
Nor sing, each in its way, spurred by her voice, 
Striving half foolishly with baby-talk 
To frame a tongue that they might comprehend : 
That I, her biggest pet of all, and whom 
She humors like a four-years' child, that I 
Should never lift her in these arms again — 
She's but a child herself, you know — and feel 
Her sweet warm breath rain kisses on my face — 
This bearded face — she says it scratches her, 
Calls me her bear, and so — (oh, what a thing 
To tell to such as you ! ) — she takes my nose 
Between her tiny fingers, thus, and plants 
One swift caress upon a nameless spot — ■ 
Disputed ground, we'll say, 'twixt cheek and nose — 
And with a rippling laugh bids me let go. 
What's that, boy, you young blue-coat there 
Handling my name? Here, I'm the man you want. 
'S that yellow scrap you carry meant for me? 
Don't stand there grinning, but let's see, let's see! 
"This morning's zvest express collided — found 
A lady's cardcase with — "O Heaven ! her name ! — 
"The woman bearing it — my girl — is dead!" 



4i 



THE COBBLER'S DAUGHTER 

A Fragment 

I 

An Inquest 

Here, by his little stall, 

My friend, the old cobbler, dwelt, 
Who was found afloat one morning 
In his back door-yard — the canal! — 
Whether some miscreant dealt 

Him a blow, or, his poor life scorning, 
He plunged to its shadowy sequel, 
Putting the riddle of time 

Blunt to the sphinx of the ages, 
Need not be told in these pages. 
Thp coroner scarce thought it equal 
To the dignity of his task 
With much of vigor to ask 
H a case so lowly and poor — (that I grace it with 
my rime.) 

Vft, suicide? — Coroner, nay! 

v ou took for evidence, (if you please,) 

In your ^leek-headed love of ease, 
The silent and outraged clay, 

And the gossip of neighbors, who knew 
Among a million, they said , 
The massive and silvered head, 

And plain strong features, but never looked 
through, 
To the soul that had flitted away, 
Nor knew its honor and truth, as I — 



42 



For which alone, be sure, he would die — 
Not to speak of the heart bereft, 
The dear little daughter he left. 

I have called him friend, 

For I knew him of old 
To the very eve of his ghastly end : 
A man of soul and heart 

Above the hammer and last, 
Who lived a life apart 

From the herd where his lot was cast. 
Almost of Socratic mold 

He seemed, as, between the strokes on a shoe, 
He discoursed of life and its meaning, 

Of manly love and duty, 

Of soul and its hidden beauty, 
While I, a youth, sat gleaning, 

The well-assorted grain 

That fell from his riper brain, 

Charmed by his kindly voice and eyes of calm 
grey-blue. 

A philosopher and a man! 

Yet there he lay, 

What was left of him ooze and clay, 

A sight unfit to scan ; 

And his matted silvery hair, 

Tangled with shreds of water-weed, 
Streamed back from a forehead smooth and fair, 
All that was left of the beautiful there. 

A man of science, indeed, 
Would resolve the putrescent mass 
Into carbon, phosphates, this or that gas; 
And give to a nicety, too, 

In a mathematical sum, 



43 



The proportions and balances due 

By which the poor molecules come 

To this malodorous end. 
But the Light, the Being, the Soul, 

The sweetness that I called friend, 

That he used to say, 

In contempt of "this hut of clay," 
Was the Self and its all ; 
That made and kept the whole 

A flower of worth and an engine divine ; 
Can Science's alchemy call 

That godhead back to its fallen shrine? 

Call back, O friend, the light that was thine, 

And the love that was that sweet daughter's and 
mine? 



II 

I remember her as a child. 

Five times the meadow's violet eyes 

Have glanced to kindred skies 
Since hers, as shyly mild 

In spite of their deep brown, 
Last looked to mine in love by passion unbeguiled : 

And a dewy gleam shot down 
With the long lashes' fall, 
And sweetly, sweetly I recall 

How o'er the April lea 

Came the dream of the June to be. 
Thus I remember the child, 

And dream what the maiden may be! 

I remember her as a child. 

Five times, from fragrant orchard-wall, 
The first sweet robin's call! 

44 



Since her keen notes beguiled 

Last, as the first time heard, 
The heart of the growing boy from musings vague 
and wild. 

And with the lay of the bird 
Of spring there came along 
A wish for the fuller song 

And passionate minstrelsy, 

That the full-choired summer must be. 
So I remember the child, 

And dream what the woman will be ! 



Ill 



Ah! for the maiden grown 

From the maidenly child I knew ; 
For the fair white flower full-blown 

From the bud that still looks through 
The few years that have flown — 

Gladly the world's end 

I would seek, to call her more than friend. 

If in a woman's love, 

As in that child friendship, true, 
And grave and thoughtful a little above 

The girlish lightness I knew — 
O what a treasure-trove, 

Even at the world's end, 

To find — and a little dearer than friend- 
That creature just less than angel, 

And still just higher than man, 
Woman, last and best, 
(And nighest His sabbath-rest!) 

In God's good Eden plan. 



45 



IV 

Among the Rocks 

Here is a tiny flower 

That grew there on the rock. 

Through many a stormy hour 
It stood the west wind's shock. 

A little sand, a little sod 

Of moss, gave it footing there, 
Till soil and sun and dew and air 

And — Something — why not call it God? — 

Wrought up and out 

This little upturned heaven of blue, 

With its yellow stars — not shining through, 

But held out — -see? — -on finger ends 

Around the center. 

Are we friends, 

Little bud, or have I done you wrong, 
To take you ere your time 
And weave you into rambling rime, 

And conjure with you in a song 

Of wonder and of doubt? 

For Science, that doeth marvels great 

And solveth mysteries 

Along these pregnant years, 
Until her thunderous progress, trod 

Through mountains and the seas, 
To vulgar thought appears 
The march of very god, 
Yet cannot make your duplicate, 

Or woo it from the sod 
Without life's primal gift at hand — 
Now gives us — something fresh and grand— 

46 



Perhaps miraged, an oasis 

'Mid deserts of hypothesis, 

A dream a poet might understand 

Of you here, blossom in my hand. 

That root, stem, bloom are not your whole, 

But wax to the impulse of all-soul 

For a shadowy self, that feels and knows 

In sphere minute a glimmer of life ; 

In changeful light that comes and goes, 

In warmth of sun and wind that blows, 

Its fragment of the great world-strife; 
Its meagre little pleasure thrill, 
Its feeble little feats of will, 
Its little sympathies and woes, 
Its little sleep when all is still. 

Howbeit, marvel and mysteries 

Lie in you, more than sky's or sea's, 

And a child that knew you through and through, 

As you were, and are, and how you grew 

From dust strewn by a frolic breath — 

What willed your tender shoots to pierce 

The clod that hid your universe, 

Lacking this little azure bell — 
Would fathom the all of life and death ; 
Might more than Dante visioned view, 

And more than Plato argued tell. 

Alas! you have no voice 

To preach the how or why, 
As in the beginning choice 

Had neither you nor I, 
Where to be born or how, 
'Mid what rude storms to bow, 

Or where or when to die — 



47 



Nay! here we part: he who, just now, 
Tiny Prometheus of the dell — 

With blue light given, 

Not stolen, from heaven — 
Peering so fondly and well 

Into your purple heart, 
That the tears of a kindred spell 

From the deep of his own did start, 
Plucked you from your rock 
And the moss's tendril-chains, 
Where you had tossed in the shock 
Of the winds and bowed in the rains, 
Could, by a stroke almost as slight 
As the finger-pressure on your stock, 
Take his plunge into the Night! 
And farewell to the winds and the rains, 
And farewell to the chains 
And the rock. 



MY ORIOLE IN THE MORNING 

I never heard the heavenly lark 
Shower with mirth an English park, 
Or brushed its dews at dawn, to mark 

How song rays sun a misty morning. 
I never woke to catch the wail 
Mellifluous of the nightingale, 
Borne from some moonlit Thracian vale, 

(Repose her deathless passion scorning!) 
But 'neath the broad and azure dome 
There is one little cottage home, 
Better than storied lands to roam 

Or palaces their parks adorning; 
And there are blossoms red and white, 
And there is love from morn till night, 

48 



Then sleep as deep till broad daylight, 
And there's my oriole in the morning! 

God, who made many sweet things be, 
Has made that happy bird for me. 
Else why haunts he that one small tree, 

Green-togaed forest patriarchs scorning? 
Has he, like me, a love-bower built, 
And darlings found, as sweet, to fill 't? 
Is that the meaning of thy lilt, 

My golden minstrel of the morning? 
Then doubly welcome, neighbor mine, 
My song is kindred unto thine. 
Both, drunk with the same Eden wine, 

Contemn or claque's or clan's adorning. 
Content to dwell with love apart, 
And pour a full and faithful heart, 
I hail thee, poet as thou art, 

My golden oriole in the morning! 

Sing on: "O sweet the days of spring, 
And sweet the summer flowering! 
But love could sweeten anything — " 

That be thy burden — this thy warning : 
"Summer joys will pass away, 
Southward fade the oriole's lay ; 
But love abideth every day, 

For mirth or mourning hearts adorning." 
And, when the wintry night is gone 
That flowers to endless summer dawn, 
Rather might souls yet slumber on 

Than what they prized here to be scorning! 
For waking were not Heaven, to me, — ■ 
In Heaven the seventh! — without these three: 
My Love's low call, my boy's loud glee, 

And that gold oriole, in the morning! 

49 



THE CLIMBERS 

High in the branches of a tree, 

(Full twice as old, I guessed, as I,} 
With nails and hammer merrily 

I wrought in careless days gone by. 

And there I built a house, and, oft 

Climbing, I furnished it with toys — 
No heights since reached or views aloft 

Have brought the heart, undimmeu, such joys. 

I heard the pigeons coo and croon, 
That flitted 'round my father's shed ; 

I saw the clouds, the cloudlike moon, 
Float in a blue sea overhead ; 

And, while the oriole's mellow call 

From loftier, leafier bowers fell, 
I spied, beyond an ivied wall, 

My little neighbor, Isabel. 

Then to her treble trill I made 

An answer shrill with puckered lips, 

And, merging to the ivy's shade, 
Her moon-face hid in brief eclipse. 

Where, ranged along the trailers' green, 

Were rosy blossoms in a row, 
And, towering, in their day were seen 

The big sunflowers and goldenglow, 

I watched until up-reaching gleamed 

Her white and chubby finger-tips, 
And, 'mid the roses, rosier seemed 

The dawning blush of cheeks and lips ; 

50 



Till, on the wall enthroned to view, 
(Forbidden more at large to go,) 

She taught me from those eyes of blue 
The deep child-lore I cherish so. 

No more with lonely toys to play 
Was I content, but fain would share 

With her, forever and a day, 

My green-walled castle in the air. 

That tree still shades the ivied wall; 

The flowers return; but never more 
Will come, (though I should climb and call,) 

The little girl that dwelt next door. 

Sweet comrade climber, through my tears 
I see thee seated, princes mine, 

Unchanged, upon the wall of years 
That rose between my heart and thine. 



VACATION THOUGHTS 

O to be home, now summer is there! 

Awake some morn to greet an air 

That paints the blush of roses sweetlier, 

And sets the red throats throbbing fleetlier; 

To hail an earth that blossoms up 

In clover-poll and buttercup ; 

To glimpse such lights as make quaint places 

Smile like long beloved faces, 

And bask in shades that brighter are 

Than sunshine any other where! 

O to walk down the lilac lane — 
Treading on pomp and gilded gain — 
51 



Till by the old familiar stream 

The grass-slopes woo to loll and dream, 

Roofed by willowy forms cloud-blending, 

(Like dear old men with hoar heads bending 

To counsel,) where I used to swing 

Above the water's mirroring, 

While all the lyrists of the air 

Made music to my heart-rhythm there! 

Then on! till sways the ancient gate 

Whence Youth leaped fain to laugh at Fate, 

To see the endearing form once more 

Stand in the rose-embowered door — 

A light about her lovely lips 

Which no rose-witchery could eclipse; 

A comelier crown, those silvered tresses, 

Than ever empress' brow caresses — 

As queenly, in her calico, 

The mother that has blessed me so! 



A POET 

Clear seer, where others dimly dream, 

Dreamer, where others but see, 
Outbuilding to-be of the things that seem, 

The all-in-all opens to thee. 

To thee is the heaven more than blue, 
And the star-stream more than light. 

Thou lookest not at, but through and through, 
Walking by vision, not sight. 

Thou knowest the balm of sun and of shower, 
And the year's awakening breath ; 

Soul of songster and heart of flower, 
And the meaning of life and of death. 
52 



The psalm the sentient spheres outroll 

Is prattle to thine ears, 
All the wild myths of sense and soul 

The nurse-rimes of thy years. 

'T was beauty wrought thy myriad mind, 

But made thy heart all love — 
Thou duty sole in dreams shalt find, 

Thy wage must reap thereof ! 

Therefore dream on, in love with thy soul, 

Abiding thine own good time. 
Thou art true bard and at one with the Whole, 

Though thou never have forged a rime. 



THE AGED POET 

He sings no more the songs of youth, 
But he is still the bard of truth. 
He dreams not now alone of Beauty, 
But with her hymns the vestal, Duty, 
The chaste, antiphonal, sister-born — 
Cheer of life's eve as charm of morn. 
Though dim his eyes they do not grope, 
For in them lies a growing hope 
That reads in starred or sunset skies 
Of twin-born immortalities. 
Yet the green slopes of memories 
Are still entrancing. Flowery years 
Bring back their smiles; the dew of tears 
Is fragrant, too. Along the street 
He loves the ring of children's feet. 
And trembling leans upon his staff 
To catch the music of their laugh. 
And then, again, his dear grey hairs, 

53 



Press like the load of lifelong cares; 

For thus in dwindling echoes go 

The voices of the long-ago! 

So tasked is he to draw his breath, 

He fain would chant the hymn of Death — 

Translated as "Amen!" he saith. 



THE POET DEAD 

Toll the bells. The poet is dead. 
Make haste to crown the good gray head 

With the meed for which he never wrought. 
Now to the winged winds be giving 
The praises ye denied him living; 

And the honored name which he but sought 
To write in hearts with tongue of flame, 
Carve on the cold grey shaft of fame. 

Then reverently breathe above 
That brow serene and hoary 

The words of a too tardy love, 
And leave him to his glory. 



CONSIDER THE FLOWERS 

Consider the lilies that blow, 

That strive not neither do sin ; 
But fair and stately and pure they grow 

To the beauty God dreamed them in, 
Chastening His sunlight, shaming His snow — 

All pearl be the vases that win 
With love to ensconce such beauties ! and so 
Thank the Giver there are such flowers below, 

That Heaven may here begin. 

54 



Consider the lilies that grow — 

Consider the roses as well, 
That warm and fragrant and crimson glow 

With a story of thorns to tell : 
Of yearning and clinging and daring a woe, 

(So the Rose of Paradise fell!) 
Consider them tenderly, Gardener — Oh ! 
Ingather them all ere the bleak winds blow, 

In Thy palace of lilies to dwell.. 

Consider the lilies that blow — 

Remember the violets too; 
The heart's-ease blossoms that nestle low 

To the love of the sun and the dew: 
Warm as the rose is, no lily discloses 

Heart purer — and tender and true! 
Thank the Father there are such blossoms that grow, 
As I in my heart of hearts do know; 

For such, my Beloved, are you. 



THE BATTLE OF VIOLETS 

Oft in the dim mid watches 

I hear a low refrain, 
Which comes in gusty catches 

'Mid the night wind and the rain. 
And O that the dear departed 

Were with me once again ! 

For with it a sweet girl face 

Peers out of the dark and the past ; 

Eyes with a certain wild-flower's grace 
Linked in their love-light fast; 

And all, in its charm and spirit, 
Too flower-like to last! 
55 



Life no such hopes can yield 
Nor such raptures bring to pass 

As when I roved the summer field 
With that little blue-eyed lass, 

And we waged a mimic battle 
With violets in the grass. 

And ah! the dimpled laughter 

And all the roguish arts! 
Spite the long vistas after 

That vision ne'er departs 
Of the Blue-caps we were linking 

Head-to-head, as were our hearts. 

And many a blue head tumbled 
To its grave on the grassy plain — ■ 

Thus human hearts are humbled 
Unto dust by Fortune's pain; 

Thus I have waged life's battle 
And am numbered with the slain. 

What meant those happy hours, 

To pass without a tear, 
Now she is dust beneath those flowers 

This many and many a year, 
Whilst I, her laughing comrade, 

Lie watching and weeping here? 

What — more than the fitful rime 
That the night wind brought to me, 

If never again in time — 
In time or the eons to be — 

The love of that little maiden 
In her eyes of blue I see? 



56 



APPRECIATION 

Poor yellow flower! 
Child of the wayside dusty and dry, 
Tramp and millionaire passed it by; 
The farmer, plodding with rhythmic scythe 
A-field ; a cowboy whistling blithe ; 
Twilight lovers loitering nigh ; 
Children dawdling schoolward ; aye, 
A tethered cow, in the dockweed high 
Browsing, with big, mild, ruminant eye; 
Scorned, ignored, and passed it by. 

Hour after hour 
Amid the grasses it nestled shy, 
And not a friend — but the dew and the sky, 

Sunshine and shower — 
Till — of all days! — the day the Queen, 
Keenest of Beauty's worshipers, 
And loveliest, too, rode grandly by, 
And, sweeping her fair blue gaze to the green, 
The one gold glint just caught her eye. 
A wave of the small gloved hand, 't was hers. 

Then — the bliss 

Of the full lips' kiss! 

Then — the rest 

Of that opulent breast! 
And not the least of the bud's joy, this: 
To have been so happily scorned by the rest ! 



POET AND FARMER 

The poet-boy lay in the shadow 
Of an oak tree in the meadow, 

Dreaming away the drowsy summer morn, 
At full-length ease, 

57 



Fanned by the lazy breeze. 
And the farmer, seeing him there 

From cock-crow to dinner-horn, 
Said "What an idler! I declare." 

But the boy dreamed on: 

With eyes half shut but soul intent 

On the living beauty around ; 

With ear awake to the divers sound 
Of bird and bee that came and went, 
With gust and lull of the breeze, 
From far-off clumps of poplar trees, 

And the knee-deep grass where the noontide sun 
Made the June air visible, curling up 
From beds of clover and butter-cup. 
Asleep ? No, no : from the deep of the sky — - 

The cloud that skimmed a sea-bird there-— 

The sparrow playing see-saw in air 
On the oak-bough nigh — 

To the gilt flower in his finger-tips, 
All was glassed in the camera of his eye, 
Darkened to make the picture real 
Ere he fashioned it to a song-ideal: 

For a whisper was going on his lips. 
And the farmer said "The lazy fellow ! 
To dally there with that pesky yellow 

But of a weed. 

What a fool, indeed!" 

But the boy dreamed on. 

The farmer went to his supper that night, 
From supper to early bed, 

With naught but his crops and his stock in his 
head. I 



58 



But the poet-boy wrote by candle-light 
A song of sweetness, a song of might, 

That is not dead, 

And a century's praise has crowned his head. 
And the farmer's grandchildren at school , 

With reading and spelling and gramn ar rule, 
Learned of his fame 
And revered his name — 

And never called the poet a fool. 

DANDELIONS 

Blossoms meet, though lowly, 

For these golden hours, 
Yet not unblest wholly 

By the chastening showers; 
Modestest of beauties, 

Nestling in the grasses, 
Springing with the springtime, 

Passing as it passes; 
Sunning by the wayside, 

Gilding park and lawn — 
Spring would scarce be springtime 

If your gold were gone. 

Never fabled Argo, 

Winged from other skies, 
Wafted such a cargo 

As you bring — to children's eyes! 
Childish feet are pressing 

All about your haunts of green, 
Childish hearts and voices blessing 

Each new glory seen. 
E)impled hands are culling, 

Rosebud lips are kissing — 

59 



Childhood were less childhood 
If your bloom were missing! 

Gold that never tempted 

But to guileless arts — 
Happy little blossoms! 

Happy little hearts! 
Happier far than we 

Whc, each flower caressing, 
Find our spirits presently 

Inly vexed with guessing 
This riddle of our living, 
Which the All-mother giving 

No firm or answering rapture with her gift im- 
parts. 

Yet I cherish dearly 

And I ever shall, 
Dreams grown dimmer yearly, 

Yet perpetual, 
Of the springtime olden 
When life — like you, all golden — 

Found no weed's bud too homely to be its coronal. 

HELENE 

What might have been ! O stranger, more than 
friend, 
Whose eyes alone have daily held with me 
Sweet byway chat — ah! what might even be, 

Should we but follow childlike to its end 

'The wildrose path where wayward fancies tend! 
This is the dream which haunts me ceaselessly, 
Flits round me like an eager bird set free, 

Just ere in cloud its soaring songheart blend : 
60 



So, too, must fade. Yet nightly, as I hark, 
The fancied footfalls ripple the chill air 
To dreams of summer wings — and you are there! 
With rose-flush, breathed, to greet me through the 
dark, 
With whiteness, felt, to fold me archly in — 
To teach my slumbering soul, what might have 
been ! 

A MAIDEN'S IDEAL 

Be a lover; bring me 

Thy heart's store. 
Be a poet ; sing me 
Songs of yore, 
Linking past to present sweetly evermore. 

Be mv teacher ; school me 

To the fill. 
Be my master; rule me 
By thy will — 
Gently, though, since ever mine, thy pleasure still! 

Be my god — ah! never, 

Nor I thine, 
Lest not Love forever 

Be divine — 
He, as all things, ours be, nothing thine or mine! 

HAPPIER DAYS 

You came, O heart of hearts, in springtide bloom, 
And laid love's happy burden at my feet. 
And I, in simple faith, gave all myself 
To you and flowery rovings day by day, 
And dreams by night of sweeter days to come — 
The dreams of happier days! 
61 



You came, O heart of hearts, 'mid summer showers, 
And gentle griefs, half sweet to dewy eyes; 
For dark departings glad returnings brought, 
Like fragrance of strewn roses after storm. 
But Love, unsated, fed on buds of hope, 
And dreams of happier days. 

You came, O heart of hearts, with harvest gold, 
And spectral splendors of the dying year. 
And, as that newborn summer, out of time, 
Might silly birds beguile till winter-bound, 
I waded through the autumn leaves alone, 
To dream of happier days. 

You came, O heart of hearts, 'mid winter frosts, 
And laid a frozen blossom on a tomb — 
A thorn within the bleeding heart of Love, 
That, in that grave unresting, night or day, 
Dreams over the dear past, forever dead — 
The dreams of happier days! 

JUNE IN OCTOBER 

When the dun leaves fall 

With the age of the year, 
And the robin's call 

No longer I hear; 
When the last sweet flowers 

Have faded from view, 
Like youth's dream hours 

And the friends gone, too — ■ 

Then O for a day 

At the heart of June, 
A little away 

From its golden noon; 
62 



Clouds high and rare 

On a violet sky ; 
Not a stir to the air, 

Not a mar to the eye — 

With the green to my side 

And my face to the blue, 
Hail! dreams that have died, 

And the friends gone, too ! 
Birds on the wing 

And their song in my soul, 
And life at the spring 

Of the deified Whole ! 



THE LESSON 

With head bowed low, but sense alert, 
I walked beside the rivulet, 
Whereon the day its seal had set 

In diamond splendor, emerald-girt. 

Beneath the ripples, at their play, 

I watched the minnows flash and dart — 
But not without a pang at heart, 

That I was not as free as they. 

The butterfly upon the wing 

I saw, the bee, half in the flower — 
And sighed for life of sweet and ease: 
Then heard, cloud-high, the brave lark sing- 
Nay, soul, work out thy songful power, 
To mount o'er idlers such as these. 



63 



A BRIDE 

Tall, yet graceful more than stately; 
Still of a mood to walk sedately ; 

In she came in her bridal sheen ; 
As calm her air as an inland lake, 
Whose placid rest no zephyrs break — 

In every step this truth is seen : 
Born in the country, bred for the city, 

Born a dairy-maid, meant for a queen! 

TO A FAIR LITTLE STRANGER 

O for a longer glimpse of thee, my sweet, 

Thy flaxen ringlets and thy clear blue eyes, 
That woke within my heart a mild surprise 

That aught so lovely should my vision greet 

In even this lovely world. Ah ! it were meet 
Thou hadst a little kingdom of thine own, 
Peopled with birds and flowers ; with a throne 

Of heaped-up gems and blossoms for thy seat. 

There gentle zephyrs and a mellow light 
Should ever play about thy plumed brow, 

While fay, elf, fairy — every kindly sprite 
Should throng to homage thee, as I do now. 

There but admit me of thy court, I pray, 

And thou shalt reign forever and a day. 

ENVOI 

Good-bye, dear friends, of various ages, 
Whom I have lived with in these pages ; 
Who ne'er did see me, never will — 
And yet I dream ye love me still, 

64 



As I do you, and still shall bring you 
From the pages where I sing you. 
If any of you chance to be 
Endowed with reality, 
And read what I have written of you, 
Ye thus may guess how much I love you: 
And may you have as pleasant times 
In life as I do in my rimes! 



THE POESY OF A RING 



TO MY WIFE 

I 

He who by love's law strives to live 
Little will have but love to give, 

Little but love to cheer his way along. 
Take, then, my sweetheart and my wife, 
These fragments from a half-spent life, 

Wasted — but for thy love and this small gift of 
song! 



And may, though slight, the offering be 
Far wealthier, worthier than he 

Who humbly, fondly, lays it at thy shrine; 
And, even then, it scarce shall be 
One tithe or tittle worthy thee, 

And the sweet excellencies which are thine. 



II 



Sweetest of women ever made 

By the God who gave to man 

Woman, in his perfect plan, 
To walk with him through sun and shade; 

Sweetheart, comrade, lover, wife, 

Star and sunny flower of life, 

68 



Hither I come and bring, 

Of blossoms wreathed, a poesy-ring — 

Bright as thy spirit, Love- — 
And of whitest pearls a string — 

Pure as thy heart-of-dove — ■ 
All in a quaint-hewn casket laid, 
Sweetest of women ever made, 



III 

O Love, to what shall I liken our love? 

From the world's heart-center, home, 

In vain will our fancy roam 
Through earth, the sea and the sphere above 

The Babylonian gardens of air, 

For images as bright and fair. 
A flower? A pearl? A bird? A star? 

A butter-fly or a honey-bee? 

Though sweetness or glory their dower, 
These too self-centered are; 

For the love that has its being in me, 
Has elsewhere its grace and its power. 

A flower in the forest, sun-kissed ; 

A butterfly on the wing; 
A lark afloat o'er the mist, 

With no thought but to soar and to sing ; 
A star at the kiss of the moon, 
When cloudless she rides to her noon ; 
May picture the joy, in part, 

Of love's sweet ministering. 
But the bee at the blossom's heart; 

The fawn athirst at the spring; 
The babe at the mother breast ! — 
Is nearer its bliss and its rest. 
69 



IV 

When Fate so kindly merged our ways, 
Thy love awoke from out the gloom 

That had enfolded other days, 

Like sweet Alkestis from the tomb ; 

Whom, in her ghastly cerements white, 
Yet glorious in her youthful bloom, 
The mirthful mighty Herakles — 
Amongst his happy ministries — 

Gave back to old Admetos' sight 

From death and Stygian night; 

And Love, recrowned by sacrifice, 

Made that Greek home a paradise. 

So in the gloom I oft had said, 
"Ah! love for me is dead, is dead!" 
I saw thy face : it blessed my sight. 
I read thy heart, and all was light! 



V 



Louise, thy love has been to me 
As a light-winged bird, that flies 
Out of the mist of lowering skies 

To sailors on a storm-tossed sea, 

And with a potent melody, 

That with the winds doth cope, 
Poureth a song of peace and hope, 

Of harbors where they long to be ; 

Of flowery walks in valleys near, 

And friends, and bowers of rest and cheer. 



70 



So, on life's unquiet sea, 
Has been thy gentle love for me. 
I hear the music of thy voice : 
It makes my somber hours rejoice. 
I catch the flutterings of new hope ; 
I see the green-hilled haven ope ! 



THE PEBBLE AND THE PEARL 

Walking one day by the sounding sea, 
I picked up a pebble that pleased me. 

For on its face, by sea-fay penned, 

I thought I read the sweet name, Friend. 

Careless I placed it next my heart, 
And daily conned its faery art. 

As time passed on the pebble grew 
Rounder and fairer to my view; 

Fairer and rounder day by day, 

And strengthened on my heart its sway, 

Till there was nothing I prized above 
The pebble — become the pearl, called Love. 

And who in the world can take from me 
The treasure I found by the sounding sea? 

(Canst thou the parable read, dear girl? 

For thou wert the pebble, and thou art the pearl.) 



71 



REVELATIONS 

Not alone, with the spring, 

Wakens the world. 
With the field's flowering 
Hope is unfurled, 
Faith rebuds fragrant, and, with the lark's carol- 
ing, 
Love, with like yearning, is heavenward hurled. 

I, who with trembling knelt, 

Sweet, at thy shrine, 
Felt the last coyness melt, 
Warmed as by wine, 
Woman, thee wooing, the heart of the All I felt, 
"God is Love!" buoyantly beating with thine. 



LOVE'S ELATION 

Love! my dull life, strangely stirred, 
At your image soars to meet 
Life anew and just complete. 

All because I have that dream 
That is why the commonest bird 
Flings me music never heard ; 

Why, from dun earth at my feet, 
There is showered a wealth of gleam 
Never shot from star or stream ; 

Why, recalling your last word, 
Child or dog along the street 
Gaily unawares I greet! 



72 



A NEW OLD SONG 

If I were her true lover, 

And she true love to me, 
About her I would hover 

As 'round his flower the bee ; 
The bee that knoweth only, 

In a garden, one sweet flower, 
And for that blossom lonely 

Doth languish every hour; 
Not to suck sweetness solely 

From her fair companie, 
But to find rapture wholly 

In her felicitie. 

If I were her true lover, 

And she to me true love, 
I should be jealous of her 

As turtle of his dove. 
As any bird of summer 

So faithful would I live, 
And, drawing sweetness from her, 

I strength for sweet would give. 
To watch and guard above her 

The joy of life would be, 
If I were her true lover, 

And she true love to me. 



THE TRYST 

At eve in the scented field I stood, 

By the sombre edge of the darkening wood; 

Mid the new-mown hay and tangled flowers 
The mowers had left from brighter hours. 

73 



Deeper and deeper the shadows lay 
On wood and field and ricks of hay ; 

Till the dying blossoms at my feet 
Were present but in spirit sweet. 

Then, just as I murmur "Will she come?'" 
I hear a low voice softly hum — 

A quaint old strain, yet ever new, 

"O heart of mine, so tender and true." 

Then bluebells crushed grow doubly sweet 
At the tender touch of fairy feet, 

And a form beloved grows out of the gloom, 
Like a fresh warm spirit from a tomb. 

Fairer than all the stars that shine 

Are the deep brown eyes looking into mine; 

Dearer than dreams of an Eden blest, 
The throb of her life upon my breast! 

LOVE AND LIFE 

Seated one evening hand in hand, 

My brown-eyed little love and I, 
Roving in Fancy's fairy-land, 

She put this query, (with a sigh,) 
"Why is this life, so sweet a thing, 
Doomed to fade like flowers of spring, 
While love, (our love,) still dearer far, 
Would bloom immortal as a star?" 
And I, her laureate in that time, 
Made answer in a trifling rime. 
74 



Love and Life, one day, 

Asleep on the selfsame bed, 
Pillowed in banked-up flowers lay, 

That the wings of May had shed. 
And in that day it used to be 
That Love was a naked and wingless sprite, 
While Life had wings and a garb of light 
Called Immortality. 

Then, as in dreams they lay, 

Came an angel from above, 
Took Life's shining dress away, 

And decked the form of Love 
In his brother's bright array. 

Then Love flew up on buoyant wings. 

And ever since that day 

The aerial elfin still flies on, 
And flying ever sings ; 

While day by day the other one 
Dwindles and pines and dies away. 

Thus life was made a thing to die, 
Thus love gained immortality. 

HYMN TO WOMAN 

From chaos and the realm of night 

Whence shoreless space yawned blank and blind, 

From the repose of quenchless Mind 
There bloomed a thought, "Let there be light!" 

The starry cycles then began. 
The Spirit moved upon the deep 
And woke the splendors from its sleep, 

And from God's head sprang forth the Man. 
75 



But all was cold and void of charm, 
Till, hymned by all the spheres above, 
Came the new thought, "Let there be love!" 

The breath divine grew wondrous warm. 

Then life to flowering beauty grew, 
And all the twinkling sparks divine 
Like lovers' eyes began to shine, 

When God's heart gave the Woman, too ! 



NUMEN! 

Ah ! Love, I dreamed thee, nude to view, 
The Cyprian fond, in face and form ; 

Though sunshine-bathed, still flecked with 
foam; 
But, Sweet, thy self I never knew 
Until I clasped thee in the storm, 

And kissed thy tears and led thee home. 
Then all the painted clay was fled; 
The godhead stood transfigured. 



THE SHADOW ON THE DREAM; A 
FRAGMENT. 



] 



Ah ! Love, how shall the hand of Love, 
That happy, heartful limner whose 
Palette has only brighter hues, 

Paint in that Shadow from above? 

O Shadow, on the landscape's sheen, 
O Cloud, upon the heaven's blue, 
76 



Can Love, thy mystery looking through, 
Keep the hand firm, the eye serene ? 

Let Love with Sorrow join in tears : 
So Love to sweeten pain may learn, 
And Sorrow strengthen Love in turn ; 

Thus each help other through the years. 

Let Hope and Faith with both abide, 
A strong, courageous brotherhood : 
Not all alike, yet each his good 

Shall carry up the eternal tide. 



II 

Yes: though the Loved be lost in sleep, 
The sweets of thought can never die 
Which throng about their memory, 

And bring us solace while we weep. 

If thus the hallowed influence stay 

Of the Departed ; as a star 

May still shine on this world afar, 
Though quenched in space ; may we not say 

That, as the brightness was and is 

All that was real of that light 

That sparkled in the dome of night 
In ages gone ; so haply 'tis 

With that we called, in life, the Soul, 

Which once through sense made sweet impress 

Upon our own : yet now no less 
Has on our spirit-ken control? 



77 



And, since its influence still subsists, 
The brightness of a vanished soul ; 
That spark from the irradiant Whole, 

We err to think, no more exists. 

Ill 

"Ah! but small comfort, this," you say, 
"That out of airy memory rears 
A palace for the heart in tears, 

Still compassed in its hut of clay." 

But is it a mere memory 

That hovers o'er us in the dreams 
Of kindly sleep, until there gleams 

A presence that we hear and see? 

A form of darkness or of light, 
A sainted friend, forgotten foe, 
Bearing a thought of love or woe, 

Then vanishing into the night? 

Or is it fancy of our own, 

That often brings such wild surprise 
Or terror, that, with staring eyes 

Awakened, we still quake or moan? 

Are we but children that the toys 
Of our own making can affright? 
That shadows mirrored in the night 

From daily thoughts, can bring us joys 

Or pains, as real as we know 

'Mid light and fullest play of sense? 
What then, if, when we travel hence, 

But to an endless dream we go? 

78 



Did sage or mystic ever sound 

The deep from whence our dreams arise, 
The sphere to which the spirit flies, 

When freed from sense's prison-bound? 

And, since we know not, let us deem 
Things best and brightest while we stay 
Here earth-bound; and the future may 

Prove its life real and this the dream. 



79 



OCCASIONAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 
PIECES AND TRANSLATIONS 



TO MY FATHER 

Father — the book, I feel, were not complete 
Without that name beloved to grace it here, 
(Stout Saxon word, by early teaching dear; 

Though lisped by baby tongues, robust as sweet, 

And prized by manly lips, how doubly meet!) 
Nor were the work quite worthy of the son, 
Without thy calm, judicial meed, "Well done," 

Never vouchsafed unworthy deed to greet. 

If 'mid the frippery and the flowers of song, 
These airy trifles, of scant leisure wrought, 

Thou stoopest not, to find, serene and strong, 
Some trace of kinship in a fruitful thought — 

For that, and the men's love that crowns our days, 

And my best self, I give thee thanks and praise. 

THE ONE WORD 

One day unto Paradise' gate 

Came a sprite that had died in his sin; 
And unto the seraph which sate 

At sentry: "Pray, let me therein! 
For I do repent me, though late, 

Of the wild, erring wight I have been." 

Then the seraph: "Too lately, I think, 
Thou hast bended that obdurate heart — " 

Just then, through an emerald chink 
Of the wall, he espied a tear start, 

And he leaned to the amethyst brink — 
"Yet tarry, though tardy thou art; 
82 



O mortal, methinketh one test 
May yet open this gate unto sin : 

In one word if thou name me the best 
That thou lovedst on earth, and herein 

Most desirest, then enter thy rest. 
God's ecstacy sweetly begin." 

Just here — 't is a cherub outwings — 

The jewel-hung gate slips ajar. 
Lo ! a silver-haired woman yon sings 

Nigh the throne, where the saintliest are, 
And, a-harping a prayer, sweeps the strings, 

And her face beameth love like a star. 

Then he knew the sweet saint that had died, 
The fount where his life did begin, 

And her prayer he divined. Then he cried, 
"O Mother!" and, spite of his sin, 

The portals of pearl swung a-wide, 
And he with the ransomed went in. 



KESHA 

A tomb there is hard by the city gate, 
Which tells of Kesha and her noble fate. 

"Here lieth one so well beloved by two, 
She unto death to one alone was true." 

Fairest was she of old Bernareth's kin, 
Darkest of eye, purest of heart within. 

For whose dear love Abdul and Amelik -vied, 
And either in her sweet cause had gladly died. 

83 



Now Abdul's suit was passionate and wild, 
Amelik's the glad devotion of a child — 

By which the maiden's choice at length was led, 
And in her father's tent the two were wed. 

But dark-browed Abdul would not brook her will, 
He ever dogged the faithful Kesha still ; 

Brooded or menaced as his feelings turned : 
And she, with gentle force, his passion spurned, 

Till once, his blade unsheathed, he hissing said, 
"I come this night for thee, or — Amelik's head ! 

It chanced that day far from his loved abode 
In chase, unknown to Abdul, Amelik rode. 

And Kesha's trembling lips the whole day long 
Murmured these words, recalled from some old 
song: 

"If love be love, whatever Fate may send, 
Still love's sweet thought will meet the bitterest 
end." 

She knew dark Abdul's heart, the fearful fate 
Awaiting the tired huntsman, coming late. 

So Kesha, with her heart at pause of beat 
And rose-lips whitening to the awful feat, 

At evening crept into her husband's bed, 
And on his pillow laid her raven head — 

84 



Whether to sleep or watch the gods above 
Know only, who regard such deeds of love. 

At midnight Abdul came, his soul as dark, 
And barely paused his victim's form to mark, 

But reared aloft his gleaming scimitar. 
It lightened downward like a falling star. 

A fair round thing rolled softly to the floor. 
The slayer caught it toward the open door, 

And, in the pitiless glimmer of the night, 
Beheld the face of Kesha, calm and white. 



TO MY SON 

Edwin Goodrich Bishop, (aetate 6.) 
"Red Head." 

If that dear head — as they say — be red. 
May Saxon beauty be never dead ! 

'T is mines to me, and in my rime 
Shall golden be to the end of time. 

With ruddy locks and eyes of blue 
The spirits glow, the heart beams true ; 

As the skin is fair the soul is pure, 
Quick in impulse, stout to endure. 

85 



Wheresoe'er your path may lead, 
May you be such in thought and deed. 

But howsoe'er your feet may err, 
One heart will be your worshiper! 



At Twilight 

Come, little man, our tasks are done, 
And we may rest with the resting sun. 

Over the hills the shadows creep, 

The flowers nid-nod, the birds "peep-peep.' 

The clock tick-ticks, away flies time, 
Few are the hours for romp and rime. 

So let us play and sing together. 

And laugh through every kind of weather; 

Until our jolly youth be gone, 

And our shoulders wiser heads put on. 



Marching 

Since we cannot stay let us merrily go 
Over the grass and over the snow. 

On little man, to Grown-up Land ; 
Forward — march ! to its visions grand. 

Eyes — front ! — yet oft to the hills above 
For the gift of gifts, and that is love. 
86 



And, amid the world of tramping feet, 
May you keep the songs of childhood sweet: 

And the fairy-tales of morn and May, 
As your father does this winter day ! 



Holiday 

Come, Golden-head, 'tis holiday, 
Brimful hours of fun and play. 

What shall it be ? The house of blocks, 
Fife and drum, or horse that rocks? 

Donkey that bucks and backs and balks? 
Doll that blinks and all but talks? 

Engine that puffs across the floor? 
License to ride on the parlor door? 

Or — to London-town on papa's knee, 
To good Dame Goose's minstrelsy, 

(Dear old doggerel!) jogging along — 
What's that? No worse than papa's song? 

Hush! my critic Golden-head, 

Here comes Mamma — off to bed! 



Trading 

Fair exchange, no larceny, this is. 
I give songs to you for kisses. 

87 



You let me into your games at times, 
And I let you into my rimes. 

So let us join our playful arts, 
Forever linked our names and hearts ; 

And — when all's done — sleep, and see whether 
We shall awaken famed together. 



THE OLD YEAR 

Light be thy footfalls, Father Time, 
Measured thy tread and softly slow. 
Of late it seems thou hurriest so 

To ring thy oft-repeated chime, 

Recurring like a poet's rime. 
Just now it came upon my ear, 
And this is what it said : 

Soft! the dear, 

Dear old Year 

Is dying — dying — dead ! 

Ye who will 

Revere him still, 
Compose the dear hands, close the eyes. 
His light has vanished. 

His days are done, 

His sands are run, 
His shroud is falling from the skies. 

Ah, Father Time, upon thy wing 
Our treasures one by one are borne, 
Till each grey eve and rosy morn 
Seems but the grave of some sweet thing 
That we have erred in cherishing : 



So that we only sighed to hear, 
Just now, the chime that said : 

Hush! the dear, 

Dear old Year 

Is dying — dying — dead ! 

Ye who will 

Revere him still, 
Close the dear eyes, compose the hands. 
His blessings all are shed. 

His days are done. 

His sands are run, 
His flowers lie withered o'er the lands. 

EASTER 

What new thing can we say 
To herald this glad day? 
What new song can we sing 
For the coming of the spring? 

I heard a voice that said : 
"The spirit of song is dead. 
The world is growing old, 

And the dwarfing lust of power 
And the starving greed of gold 

More than ever rule the hour, 
And the poet's blood is cold. 

The face of him who smiles with the flower, 
The voice of him who sings with the bird, 
Is seldom seen, is little heard, 

No coronal his dower ! 
From the bustling of the street, 

The forum or the mart, 
He needs must live his sweet 

And solemn life apart." 
89 



Yet, year on year, 
The season is here, 
When a new heaven, a new earth, 
Come like a morning-glory's birth. 
Earth-girdling the green hosts creep 
Forth from their frost-bound prison ; 
And blossoms spring, 
And songbirds sing — 
(Never before!) 
So out of the shadowy ages' sleep 
Our Christ is risen 
Forever more! 

What new song need we sing 
For the coming of the spring? 
What new thing need we say 
To herald this glad day? 



BABY'S CATECHISM 

(With a parent's commentary.) 

What are you, Baby? 

— A little white bud, 
Dropped to you from the gardens of God — 
(Bloom on, little one, 
Until the summer of life be done!) 

What are these, so bright? 

— Twin stars of light, 
To twinkle by day and hide by night — 
( Grey, brown or blue, 
May they ever shine with a light that's true!) 



90 



And what are these, pray ? 

— Pink sea-shells, they, 
Picked up where the ripples dance and play — - 
( In sound of a sea, 
Whose murmur is of eternity!) 

What are these, so sweet ? 

—Wee messengers fleet, 
To carry love's letters down life's street — 
(May they never stray 
Into a dark or stony way!) 

And what are these, say? 

— Busy workers, they, 
The stout young master, Will, to obey — 
(Kind deeds, not strong, 
Will make of life the sweetest song.) 

What is within? 

— A little spark 
That God has struck out of the dark — 
(Shine out, little ray, 
Till He call you to His perfect day.) 

A BABY IN THE HOME 

"A baby in the house," 't is writ 

At large in every room. 
You cannot go amiss of it, 
Where'er you walk or stand or sit — 

A baby in the home ! 

In gay disorder here and there; 

In scattered toys and tumbled clothes, 
To vex the eye and catch the toes; 

In puzzled queries, "How?" and "Where?" 
91 



In volumes torn and inky stains ; 

In penciled walls and littered floors; 

In finger-marks upon the doors, 
And palmistry upon the panes : 

In changing looks, of frown and smile; 

In hurryings up and down the stair; 

In startling calls upon the air — 
In loving heart-throbs all the while! 

In stir and bustle at odd times: 

In nightly lights that come and go; 

In lullabies and murmured rimes, 

And midnight croonings soft and low, 
Weaving bright fancies out of gloom ; 

In babble-song and bantam-crow, 

At the hush dawn of morning-glow — 

To elder slumberers below 
A mimic trump of doom ! — 

'Tis published near and far — (God bless 

The little bud of happiness!) 
A baby in the home ! 

LITTLE THINGS 

Little feet, fit for kisses ! 

Toddling 'round in quest of blisses, 

Day by day 

May your way 
Find no thornier path than this is ! 

Little hands, free from stain, 
Serving that wee busy brain, 

May your deeds — 

Flowers, not weeds — 
Grow, nor cause your dear ones pain ! 
92 



Little face — cherub light 
Play around it day and night ! 

Roselights hover, 

Which discover 
Never shame for Beauty's sight! 

Little heart, flowerlike one, 
Opening daily to the Sun, 

May your life, 

Fragrance-rife, 
Bless us till life's day be done ! 



UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER 

Bud, that have blown into our lives, so suddenly, so 

sweetly, 
Wonder of all — a thing so small, to have captured 

us so completely ! 
What shall we sing or what shall we say, 
To make for you fit roundelay, 
To welcome you here most meetly? 
To welcome you here, and to keep you, Dear, 
While the years run on so fleetly ? 

Just tell you this — and with it a kiss! — 

That the days have been shorter, brighter, 

Since you came this way from the far-away, 

Our burdens more, yet lighter: 

Just say to you, by all that is true 

As the ring of your voice, as your eyes are blue, 

That we are yours by all that is fair 

As the rose of your lips, as the gold of your hair, 

By the rules of all schools, and of law, love and war, 

Here and everywhere, now and hence ever more! 



93 



REQUIEM 

(Margaret Louise Bishop; died Nov. 30, 1903.) 

Strew naught but white bud roses 

Upon the little grave; 
For here the sweetest bud reposes 

That summer ever gave. 

The smile of earth grew sweeter 

For the blossoming surprise. 
The vaulted azure was completer 

For what it gave her eyes. 

We deemed the birds from Heaven 
That sang while she was ours, 

And only now to feel, 'tis given, 
How earthly are these flowers! 

Pitying He bent to view us 

Who called her from the earth — 

The love that only lent her to us 
Knew best her heavenly worth. 

So heavenward back we lend thee, 

And thither look for pay. 
Daughter, adieu ! 'tis home we send thee — 

Glad spirit, lead the way ! 



94 






REQUIESCAT 

The new buds start, 

The grasses creep 

Above her sleep — 
Ah ! wounded heart, 

No longer moan 

"Alone! alone!" 
Go, carve this verse upon her stone, 

Her name adorning: 
O Sorrow, have thy night — 
Twilight ! 

Starlight! 
Twilight ! 

Then, morning! 

For floral bowers 

Be quickly seen, 

Ye grasses green. 
Grow statelier, flowers, 

Above your own 

Queen blossom blown — 
Awhile must Love here sleep alone, 

Then — Heaven's adorning! 
Twilight ! 

Starlight ! 

Dawn bright! 
And so, Sweetheart, good night, 

Till morning! 



95 



STRIVINGS 

In childhood tirelessly we prize 
Fleet Pleasure's flitting butterflies. 

In youth we chase the nimble dove — 
Oft caught, ne'er caged, by mortal — Love. 

In manhood, re-enthroning self, 
We grasp the irised bubble, Pelf ; 

Or climb to write an empty name 
High on the cenotaph of Fame. 

In age, when other strivings cease, 
We woo, nor gain, the siren, Peace. 

And then — the surest and the best — ■ 
There comes, unsought, an angel, Rest! 



THE KINGFISHER 

Above the mirror of the stream 
He hangs. His eyes are like a dream, 
Till, from the water's placid flow, 
Enkindled by a silvery gleam. 

The spark has fired his kingly heart. 
His pinions from their slumber start, 

And, drawn into the deep below, 
His beak sinks like an iron dart. 



96 



REDUNDANCY 

(On seeing a book entitled:) 

"Woman, Home and Heaven!" 

O blessed trinity! 

Ah, heart, what ecstacy, 
To whom these all be given ! 

But stay : why name the three ? 
For where the first resides 
The second, too, abides — 

Where they, the last shall be. 

A HINT TO ARTISTS 

Would you glimpse the stars sublime 

Spite of garish day? 
Clouds to pierce or peaks to climb 

Do not point the way. 
Diver, delver, ye can tell — 
Sink the shaft or drive the well. 

Ye who would the glaring world 

Reach by cunning art, 
Your creative might be hurled 

Deeply from the heart. 
There your nights and days prolong, 
Carve the statue, build the song ! 



97 



THE WORLD'S VIEW OF HIM 
(On the death of Cecil Rhodes.) 

So he is gone — too tardy fate ! — 

To his dishonored tomb, 
Who made republics desolate 

And plunged a world in gloom ; 
Who drank in blood and widows' tears 

A toast to sordid self, 
And made the pang of shadowed years 

Pay tribute unto pelf. 

Where were thy thunderbolts, O Heaven, 

When he in triumph stood 
O'er the embattled yeomen, driven 

To seal their faith in blood ? 
When in the trenches matrons fair 

Their beardless sons beside 
Commingled battlesmoke and prayer, 

And like the Spartans died ? 

What of the nation and the bard 

That dare affront the times, 
And make the laurel-wreathed reward — 

Ignoble as its rimes — 
Pay tribute to the last and least 

And worst of humankind? 
Colossus? Nay, but satyr-beast, 

Titanic of its kind. 

Nay, "Laureate," tyrants cannot "link 

Nations with ties of steel" 
While yet the general mind can think, 

Or man to God can kneel. 

98 



Sure as the sun of day sets not 

Upon your Edward's reign, 
The God of light has not forgot : 

His truth shall rise again. 

Britain, has he for nothing wrought, 

Thy nobler bard, who saw 
Seer-like a commonwealth of thought 

And universal law? 
Where lust of gold and war should cease, 

And love's new ministry 
Bring in the glad millennial peace, 

"The Christ that is to be?" 

THE LIGHT OF RUSSIA 

In dreams I saw the Empire free! 

Her continental plains 
Half girdling still the Unconquered Sea, 

Yet virgin as her snows 
From lust of antique tyrannies: 

And, as the tropic rains 
Strew flowery isles 'mid sapphire seas 

With every wind that blows, 
The bloom of liberty and peace upon her bosom 
rose. 

Ah, marvel of the happy dream ! 

Clio, unfold the cause. 
The blood of patriots, free to stream 

As Dionysian wine? 
Charters from cringeing despots wrung? 

The tardy balm of laws? 
Nay: Tolstoi reigns! (the goddess sung,) 

—See! "Love" his standards shine — - 
Tsar by the might of kindly light, the only "right 
divine." 

99 



THE TWO FATHERS 

(Red Sunday in St. Petersburg.) 

Up from the trampled people 

Still the cry, "O Lord, how long — 

(For the heart of his saints with waiting faints) 
Shall the weak make bricks for the strong? 
Shall the Right bow down to the Wrong?" 

"We will go to the Little Father, 

We will stand before his throne. 
When he hears the prayer of the hungry there, 

Will he not honor his own ? 

Will he give his children a stone?" 

So forth from the homes of the humble 
Goes the wan and weaponless host ; 

A priest of Heaven the leader given — 
The Cross his banner and boast, 
His comfort the Holy Ghost. 

And right through the heart of the city 
Moves that living prayer for bread, 

Till down from the horde of the Caesar lord 
Rains a manna of fire instead, 
Comes the hail of steel and lead. 

And the gutters are runnels of crimson 
With the deaths of brave and. good, 

And the hoary-haired and women, who fared, 
And babes that toddling stood, 
Fall dabbled in blameless blood. 



100 



And up from the hearths of the humble 

Goes still the cry for bread ; 
But the burden rolls from starving souls 

Of Rachels uncomforted 

For the loved forever fled. 

But they go to the Great Good Father, 

They stand before His throne. 
Freedom, thy prayer they are hymning there ; 

And will He not honor His own? 

Will He give His daughter a stone? 



"ETERNAL MEMORY" 

"Eternal memory!" Eternal fame! 

For those whose blood cries up for Godly rage 
On Cossack crime, that spared not reverend age, 

The blameless flower of child-life or the flame 

Of womanly devotion. In God's name, 

For them who slaughtered such or bade to slay- 
Hell's masked marauders in our human clay — 

Eternal infamy! eternal shame! 

"Eternal memory!" — Freedom, make thine, now, 
The cry which rises o'er the sacred dead, 

With savor of saints' tears, unto the Lord, 
And for thy darlings, who in thy sight bled, 
No more a Rachel in thy sackcloth bow, 

But rise, avenging queen, gird on thy sword. 



IOI 



ALTGELD'S LAST THOUGHT 

To fall as men have fallen — are falling still 
In that dark land beyond the southern sea — 
Bondmen to Death to make the living free; 
Red-badged for faith and self-effacing will; 
Were noblest in the files of time ; to fill 
A grave with such as wrought for liberty 
At Concord bridge or old Thermopylae — 
Ages smile back on such. Yet, Angel chill, 
With next the kindliest touch thy chastening rod 
Falls welcome, when a great soul, taking flight, 
Breathes forth in a great cause this creed, sub- 

blime 
As seer hath dreamed or minstrel wreathed in 
rime: 
That, howe'er swings the pendulum of right, 
Its poise is ever toward the throne of God! 

TO AN ENGLISH POET 

High priest of Beauty, darling of the gods, 
Laurelled of virgins and the sons of Love, 
The poets' poet and the joy thereof — 

What more could fit thee for the blest abodes 

Whereto the Muses lured thee through the night? 
What more for azure deeps whence critic rage 
Once sought to blot thine orb? (that a vain age 

Might see and homage stars of lesser light!) 

O that such herald passion as did inspire 
Thy humdrum London youth to ecstacy 

Pastoral as Pan, Hellenic as the Greek, 
Full as a lark's throat of high melody, 
As a June rose of sensuous sweet, might fire 

To-day's rude tongues, or silence, or make 
meek! 

102 



ON RE-READING A FAVORITE POET 

(Unappreciated in his life, and neglected now.) 

Erewhile I deemed you deaf and blind, O world, 
But ye were merely dead, as unformed clay. 
As children housed with irised suds will play 

Whilst out of doors stark nature lies impearled, 

Or God, His ancient promise fresh unfurled, 
Is sifting out the myriad hues of day, 
Ye dance to each new Pan's poor piping lay, 

While Orphean raptures to the rocks are hurled. 

So would it be though to your ears and eyes 
(Unheralded) the mighty dead should rise; 
Though Dante clasped by Beatrice should sing 

The blisses of unfancied Paradise, 

Or Milton some new epic of the skies 

Should from the throne of unsunned splendors 
bring. 



AN AMERICAN POET 

A sweet and gentle nature, and yet strong: 

Strong in a purpose lofty and sincere ; 

Strong to awake the smile or start the tear 
Or lift the soul with hopeful, helpful song; 
To cheer the traveler who plods along 

In life's low vale with trembling and with fear ; 

To ease his doubtings, as the sun shall clear 
The mists from off the hilltops where they throng. 

The chosen laureate of a people's will, 

He charmed our ears with strains serenely sweet, 
103 



Yet touched our hearts and lives in all our deeds. 
His people loved him and they love him still; 
And so his words shall live as ages fleet, 
And plenteous fruit shall crown the well-sown 
seeds. 



ON ANOTHER 

There is another, of a sterner mould 

To outward view, yet wondrous soft of heart, 
Whose tongue and pen have borne a hero's part 

In freedom's holy cause ; for loud and bold 

The story of oppression's wrongs he told, 
And, deftly woven with the singer's art, 
The fervor of the zealot did impart: 

And in the cause of truth no strain was cold. 

And still he walks among us, full of days, 
Teaching the lesson of a well-spent life 
To all who read the epoch's glowing page. 
O may he linger long, laurelled with praise 
Above the martial victors of the strife, 

Crowned with the crown of venerable old ase. 



TO D. F. S. 

Call me not "failure," though not yet you see 
Me coming from the harvest with full hand 
Of fortune's favors, or, more rich and grand, 

Gems from the deep of immortality — 

The fairy future yet belongs to me! 

I may but pluck some pebbles from the strand — 
Pearls unto me alone in the broad land — 

A sparrow's chirp my all of song may be. 
104 






But stay your judgment till the clearer light 
Of other days shall crown the aspiring brow 
Of him condemned to linger with you now 

In this sepulchral valley of the night. 

The flood of years shall float me from this dark, 
And land on sun-kissed Ararat my bark. 

SONG 

Star in the summer sky, 

Beautiful spark, 
Like a winged spirit-eye 

Piercing the dark, 
Though deep in heaven thou be, 
I do not envy thee. 

Ship of the western sea, 

Cleaving the foam, 
Far through the ocean free 

Gem-bringing home, 
Though a stored argosy, 
I do not envy thee. 

Bird, in the forest dell 

Soaring and dwelling, 
Thou hast a joy to tell 

Past human telling! 
Thou art so fair and free, 
I almost envy thee. 

Flower, at my Lady's breast 

Fragrantly lying, 
One with its perfect rest, 

One with its sighing — 
Ah, how I envy thee! 
Thus I at rest would be. 
105 



SUNDAY RELIGION 
(On an Old Church) 

Its tower points the way to Heaven, 
The belfry chimes, the organ groans, 
People and priest in solemn tones 

"Te Deum" chant — one day in seven! 

From windows dimmed with saintly dreams 
The sunshine falls in rainbow smiles 
Along the tessellated aisles: — 

Heaven's gate and house of God it seems. 

But praise or prayer, through all the week, 
Or godly help, you there may seek, 
O child of faith, and be shut out: 
Whilst on the walls and all about 
Are empty words on whited stones, 
Silence and dust and dead men's bones. 

A BABY'S FACE 

Sweet Baby-face, untouched by care 

Nor marred by sorrow's trace, 
But haloed 'round with flaxen hair, 

Sweet Baby-face. 

O prince in state, O cherub grace, 
Embowered in cradle, 'throned on chair, 
Making a Heaven this homely place — 

Where hast thou breathed celestial air? 

Whence come with creeping pace ? 
No matter: thou art here, not there: 

Sweet Baby-face. 

1 06 



OF SUCH ARE THE KINGDOMS 

Each night with its stars sings heaven, 
As daily old earth with its flowers, 

"To the little ones be it given 

To come unto us: they are ours." 

So, as daylight comes, or it closes, 
They come to us, — and they go! 

Welcome and sweet as the roses, 
Blameless and pure as the snow. 

GRADUATION 

To graduate — it means, a step to take ; 

From school to school, from life to larger life ; 

From bud to bloom, from bloom to fruitage rife, 
Through seasons slow the harvest-home to make ; 
Youth's greenness, not its growing, to forsake ; 

No triumph yet, but ever nobler strife, 

Finding life's crown each hour in each hour's life, 
And only at set of sun thy rest to take. 
It means, a little more into the light; 
A little clearer in the inner sight ; 
A little farther on the widening way 

By worth and wisdom of the ages trod ; 
A little lifted from this sordid clay, 

A little nearer to the stars of God. 

FRAGMENT 

With every tick of time from sun to sun 

Some sweet-eyed baby draws its first faint breath, 

And still, each night, the circling stars shine on 
An ever-crowding commonwealth of death. 
107 



NOTES 

Of an Unwritten Drama, entitled "LIFE." 

First of all, an accident, 

Of two souls in joyance blent, 

Heedless of the Consequent. 

Then, a darkness and a sleeping, 

(Whether with or without dreaming 
Is not clear.) 
Then, a groping and a creeping 
Out of twilight into gleaming 
Now and Here. 

Next, a smiling and a laughing — 

Here and there — some dew-sweet quaffing, 

As of early dawn ; 
Then, a roving and a yearning 
Upward till the noon is burning 

And that sweetness — gone ! 
Then, a sighing and a turning, 

Face regretful, to the past, 
Blossoms one by one inurning, 

Till the Shadow falls at last. 

Then — a silence and a sleeping — 

(Is there waking? Is there dreaming? 
Ask no more.) 
Then, some true heart memories keeping, 
And a name from fault redeeming — 
All is o'er: 

Save a little dust and bone 
Slowly mingling with its own, 
And a name carved on a stone ! 
1 08 



ACHIEVEMENT 

Maker am I of opportunity, 

And lord of fate beside. Naught hems my view 
Or bars my way. I leap the bounds of blue. 

I tunnel mountains, bridge the lashing sea. 

I sift the ores of twinkling worlds. To me 
The whirling systems twilight eons through 
Bring tribute vast — yet nothing ever new ; 

For ere they were I am — shall after be. 

Such are my realm and reign. My throne is man. 

I make him god, to know both good and ill ; 

To taste all fruits, but choose the higher still. 
I, aimless never, work my patient plan, 
Till of my stuff his final self be wrought — 
His will the tool, but I the master, Thought! 

THE FATE 

From the Italian of Nicola Gigliotti 

Master am I of human destiny. 

Fame, Grandeur, Love my willing vassals are. 

I walk through fields and cities near and fat, 
Knocking, once only, at each door I see; 
Then seek I other paths half aimlessly. 

If sleeping, wake. If feasting now thou share 

In wine and sin, to bring surcease of care, 
Arise, (for I am Fate,) and follow me. 

Else woe betide! for I give horses, gold, 
Fame, honor, woman and the sweets of life, 
And only death shall worst thee in the strife. 

Seize thy sole chance or my revenge behold. 

"I stay: leave me," I answered, "'tis by thought 

Alone that man to bliss and strength is brought." 
109 



THE SILENT LAND 

From the German of Salis ; 

(And imitating the original form.) 

Into the Silent Land ! 
Ah, who will guide us over ? 
Already the dark-winged clouds in the evensky 

gloomily hover, 
And the wrecks of fair vessels are strewn on the 

strand. 
Who will lead us, with gentle hand. 
Thither, ah! thither, 
Into the Silent Land? 

Into the Silent Land! 
To you, ye regions spacious, 
Ye airs ennobling to souls, ye visions supernal and 

gracious. 
To answer the promise, immortal and grand : 
Who true in life's struggle shall stand 
Shall carry the buds of his hope 
Into the Silent Land. 

O Land, O Silent Land! 
Where waits — ah! blessed evangel! — 
For all the storm-beaten pilgrims our destiny's ten- 

derest angel, 
Who beckons and guides, with up-turned brand, 
And leads, with a gentle hand, 

To the land of the vanished Great. 
Into the Silent Land ! 



no 



THE MOUNTAIN-VOICE 

From the German of Heine 

A cavalier through the valley rode, 

And trotted in silent gloom. 
"Ah, is it to my loved-one's arms 

I go, or the darksome tomb ?" 
Then answered the voice from the mountain gloom, 
"The darksome tomb." 

And further rode the cavalier 

And sighing heaved his breast. 
"If then so soon to the grave I go, 

Ah, well, in the grave is rest." 
Again the voice his mood expressed, 
"In the grave is rest." 

Then down the cheeks of the cavalier 

The tears of his sorrow fell. 
"If only the grave hath rest for me, 

To me in the grave 'tis well." 
And the hollow voice on his ear still fell, 
"In the grave — 'tis well." 



Ill 



THE BROOKLET 

From the German of Goethe 

Thou brooklet, silver-bright and clear, 
That hurriest on forever here, 
Upon thy bank I musing stray : 
Whence comest thou, where goest away? 

From out the cliff's dark womb I find 
My way. O'er flower and moss I wind ; 
And mirrored in my breast the sweep 
Of azure heavens I gladly keep. 

A childlike spirit thus I bear, 
My course still on — I know not where. 
Who bade me from yon rock to flee, 
I think will still my Leader be. 



112 



ON THE DEATH OF A PET SPARROW 

From the Latin of Catullus 

O weep, ye loves and cupids, 

And men of kindred mind, 
For that my sweetheart's sparrow 

Is dead: which she did find 
A joy, and did as dearly prize 
As light of her delicious eyes. 

Ah ! sweet he was, and knew her 

As any child its mother ; 
Clung ever to her bosom 

And would not brook another ; 
But, hopping to and fro, would stay 
And pipe to her alone his lay. 

But now that shadowy journey 

He goes, whence, as they say, 
Never returneth mortal 

Unto the light of day. 
Ah, ill betide thee, darksome Death ! 
All fair things vanish in thy breath. 

So, with our pretty sparrow, 

Which thou hast snatched away — 

Ah ! woe is me, poor birdie, 
Thy doing 'tis, to-day, 

That my fair sweetheart's eyes, so dear, 

Are swoln and red with many a tear. 



! 

"3 



1 SONG 

From the Latin of Catullus 

Sweetheart, let us live — and love! 
And thus the sweets of living prove. 
A fig for greybeards preaching duty 
To us, while we have youth and beauty. 
Suns may set and suns may rise ; 
Not so the light in loving eyes. 
For us when once the brief day goes, 
An endless night we must repose. 



114 



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